Vermillion Seastar

Pentagonaster dubeni

This brilliant orange or red seastar lives on a rocky bottom, or caves, in shallow inshore waters down to about 160 m depth, and feeds on encrusting organisms such as sponges and bryozoans. It reaches about 150 mm across. Like all seastars its outer body is made up of thick interlocking plates. In other species, these can be modified into blunt or sharp spines that may even be venomous as they are in the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish.

Found around southern Australia as far north as southern Queensland.

Vermillion Seastar (Pentagonaster dubeni), Wild Guide to Moreton Bay

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